Ten ways to boost giving

NPC perspectives: Ten ways to boost giving

Tris Lumley, Martin Brookes, Rachel Macdougall and Plum Lomax

March 2011, 20 pages

Download full report

Donations from individuals are vital for the charity sector. In 2009/2010, individual giving totalled £10.1bn, 37% of the sector’s income. But individual giving is stagnant. For the last 20 years, donations as a share of total household spending have remained stable at 0.4%. Contrary to recent hype, giving is not increasing.

Faced with public spending cuts and austerity measures, charities are increasingly looking to individual philanthropy to boost their income. The government’s recent Giving Green Paper echoes these hopes. But more effort is needed to boost philanthropy, and overcome barriers to giving.

In this paper NPC suggests Ten ways to boost giving based on a decade of experience working to increase the volume and impact of philanthropy. Collaboration is needed between a number of groups, from banks to foundations and charities to government, to give UK giving a much-needed boost.

'Boosting charitable giving is something in which we all have a stake. We should all want to encourage people to be more generous to charities. This is not an ideological point about the role of the state, or plugging the gap caused by cuts in government funding of charities. It is simply a good thing if charities have more funding. That should be a moral imperative felt by everyone—companies, charities, politicians, and the media'.

Martin Brookes, report author

See all NPC's research reports

Click here to see a full list of all reports NPC has published

'Relationship managers need to be able to talk about philanthropy with a great deal of confidence to ensure that they can educate clients and help them in decision making and the process of giving.'

An international multi-family office